A Little Light Reading
by ProcrastinatingPalindrome
Summary: England regrets letting France into his library when a history book with some embarrassing stories from his childhood is uncovered.


England was just too kind for his own good. A less gentlemanly nation, when forced to allow his worst enemy into his home while their bosses had a meeting, may have ignored said enemy. The lesser nation may have just let the enemy stew in his own boredom until the bosses returned from their talk and allowed their nations to join in the next discussion.

But England was above such pettiness. After watching France mill around his house for a few minutes, ask obnoxious and entirely inappropriate questions about _every single photo he passed by _and accidentally kick Victoria, England's precious and very vocal Yorkshire terrier, England finally offered to let him grab a book for a little reading in the library to pass the time.

It wasn't as though he was just shoving France off into a room where he was less likely to be trouble. This was the entirely altruistic act of a true gentleman who was choosing to take the moral high road and offer a little hospitality to a guest. England's library was massive, a well-stocked and well-tended masterpiece of bookkeeping. He was only sharing it out of the goodness of his heart.

And with any luck, he would get to see France break down in tears of shame as he finally realized how utterly superior British literature was the French garbage.

He felt only the slightest twinge of apprehension when France wasted no time at all weaving through the bookshelves, grinning like a certain cat from a certain book about a certain little girl falling down a rabbit hole. England had hoped to nudge him towards the bookshelves that held Shakespeare and Milton and the like, but France was moving back into the depths of the library. England didn't particularly like the idea of letting a frog roam free among his books...

At least France knew how to treat books properly. America insisted on eating while reading and _always_ left crumbs down in the binding. Canada dog-eared pages, a crime that should be punishable by death. He used to think that Russia knew how to respect books, but that was before he returned the copy of _Animal Farm _England loaned him. Every page was water-wrinkled and the whole thing reeked of vodka. Russia claimed he had no idea how that had happened, and England wrote his name down on the list of people who were banned from his library for life.

"_Hon hon hon_."

England cringed as the sound drifted back through the shelves. That laugh. _That laugh. _It was worse than nails on a chalk board combined with America singing in the shower and a generous heap of that shrill sound Japan was known to make when he was watching those cartoons where everyone had enormous eyes and candy colored hair.

England hated that laugh. One day he would get it outlawed from his shores. What a wonderful day that would be...

That laugh could not possibly be good news, and so England hurried deeper into his library, past the rows of bookshelves in search of his troublesome guest. France had already ventured a great deal deeper than England would have liked, past Dickens and Byron and into the shelves England would rather France keep his filthy hands out of, thank you very much.

France already had a book cracked open by the time England caught up to him.

"I found such a delightful buried treasure, Angleterre," France said innocently, leafing through the pages and not sparing England a single glance.

"What have you got there? Put that down, I didn't give you permission-"

"You said I could look at a book while we wait, oui? You never specified any limitations. Unfortunate for you. I believe I have found a nation's equivalent of a baby book."

England craned his neck to look at the faded cover. _The Ecclesiastical History of the English People_, written by the Venerable Bede all the way back in the 8th century. Ah.

"It's only a medieval history manuscript. It's not as though you didn't know me when I was young," he grumbled, trying to not get flustered about this.

"Ah, but I didn't know you _that_ long ago. And it has been such a long time since you were small. I have forgotten that you were once a cute little boy, quite the opposite of your current ornery and undesirable self-"

"_I'll give you undesirable_-"

"And there, you prove my point. Forgive me if I wish to indulge in some nostalgia."

England scowled and shoved his hands down into his pockets. There was something embarrassing about letting France read that account of his younger years. But surely it couldn't do much harm. He was relatively sure Bede didn't include any embarrassing details from his childhood in the book...

He dared to sneak a quick look at the open page, and sighed in relief. This part looked innocent enough.

"If you're looking for juicy stories about me, I doubt you'll find them there," he said smugly. "The chapter you're on is just a series of letters between Augustine of Canterbury and Pope Gregory. It's a lot of theological debate, nothing more."

"Ah, oui?" France drawled with a quirked eyebrow, still scanning the pages.

"Yes, _oui. _Augustine just wrote to ask some practical, perfectly legitimate questions to make my conversion to Christianity that much smoother. Goodness, I think I recall asking him a few of these questions personally to pass on to Gregory-"

"So _you_ were the one who wanted to know if you were still allowed to receive Communion after having a wet dream?"

England nearly choked on his own tongue.

"Let me see...Augustine's questions was...ah, here it is: 'Whether after an illusion such as happens in a dream, any man may receive the body of our Lord, or if he be a priest, celebrate the Divine mysteries?' I don't suppose I should be surprised that this would be a serious concern to you. But how young you must have been to be having such dreams-"

"You-! I-I didn't...!"

"No need to be ashamed, it is perfectly natural! Though you _did_ start early, non? Clearly you were destined to a life of sexual deviancy!"

"You have no room to talk about sexual deviancy!"

"So you admit that the question came from your own young, not-as-innocent-as-big-brother-France-thought mind? I'm a little disappointed. I thought you were so pure back then. Quel dommage."

"I-I'm not...I just...it...eugh."

England cringed as he remembered confessing the filthy sin he accidentally committed at night to a somewhat baffled Augustine, who promised to write to Gregory if it put England's mind at ease on the issue...

"Don't let it trouble you too much," France said merrily, reaching for another book off the shelf. "Ah ha, the _Exeter Book of Riddles! _I remember this one. Surely a few Old English penis jokes will help cheer you up! My my, it seems that you've always had a filthy mind. And you're so fixated on the joys of the male anatomy-"

England said a quick apology to Chaucer's ghost as he seized a nice heavy copy of _The Canterbury Tales_ and chucked it at France's head.

Henceforth, France's name was on the 'banned from England's library for life' list.

Historical Notes:

_The Ecclesiastical History of the English People_ was written by the Venerable Bede in 731. Bede was _the _English historian at his time. If anyone was reading about England back then, they were reading Bede. And yes, a part of it does deal with the issue of wet dreams and Communion.

The _Exeter Book of Riddles _is amazing. It is a masterpiece in the Old English language, and it is rife with penis jokes. Never let it be said that the folks of antiquity didn't have a sense of humor.


End file.
